Page 190 - Beyond Methods

178 Activating intuitive heuristics
serious consequences to the learning and teaching of L2 grammar because, as Eric Hawkins (1984, pp. 150–1) concludes: “Grammar, approached as a voyage of discovery into the patterns of the lan- guage rather than the learning of prescriptive rules, is no longer a bogey word.”
Reflective task 8.1
Based on your experience as a language learner (and teacher), consider the usefulness of self-discovery in learning/teaching the grammatical system of an L2. Compare your thoughts with those of another person, if possible.
The logic of preferring reasoning over rules appears to be fairly simple. What is not so simple is the way such logic can be translated into the practice of everyday teaching. Let us turn to that complex issue.
Grammar in Action
In the true spirit of heuristics, let us first try to discover what the teachers in the following interactional episodes actually do in the classroom to help their learners understand the pattern underlying certain grammatical rules. The interactional episodes are taken from two different grammar classes taught by two different teachers. The classes consisted of high intermediate to low advanced ESL learners.
The teacher in episode 8.1 was focusing on adverbial clauses. The day before the class, she had asked her students to read one unit of a lesson in the prescribed book. The unit presented defini- tions of clause, dependent clause, independent clause, etc., followed by a series of fill-in-the-blank-type questions. The students were sup- posed to have read the lesson and come prepared with the answers. Study the classroom interaction: